When is old enough?

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The presidents of 100 or so prestigious colleges are asking Congress to consider lowering the age of legal drinking from 21 to 18. And it set off a storm of protest from groups who say that allowing 18-year-olds unrestricted alcohol would only increase the number of fatal car crashes.The presidents say it would reduce the amount of binge drinking on campuses by underage youths. If they know they can but it when they want to, the reasoning goes, they'll be less likely to gulp it when they can get it.The idea deserves consideration if only because the law is widely ignored, it is discriminatory and was imposed in a backhanded way.Any visit to places where college-age kids gather shows that they regard the age limit, not as a matter of right and wrong, but as a regulatory obstacle intended to inconvenience them, which in a way it is. Fake IDs are almost a rite of passage.Eighteen-year-olds are told they're mature enough to vote, join the military and sign binding contracts but, unlike youths in most other nations, too immature to drink beer.Federal law does not prohibit states from lowering their drinking age, but if they do, they sacrifice a share of their federal highway money. One solution might be to throw the problem back at the state legislatures.But there is no easy answer to the problem of young people's drinking because it's rooted in the culture. Young people in England and Germany are no better behaved than our own whereas in Mediterranean countries where moderate drinking is the norm there is much less of a problem.America has a long history with alcohol. The Founding Fathers were no strangers to spirits and the first challenge to their new government was from the whisky distillers of Western Pennsylvania. Prohibition, the complete ban of almost all alcohol consumption, was a disaster, breeding widespread disrespect for the law. Simply opening the way to purchases of wine over the Internet required a protracted court fight.There is good reason to believe that lowering the age limit might not change youthful drinking habits but these university presidents, who are closest to the problem and certainly care about the welfare of their students, deserve a hearing.(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)